Monday, January 02, 2012

Farewell 2011

Yet another
year has passed us by and I am headed into my fifth full season of operating
this blog.

Strange how
things happen over five years. It is amazing to me how this went from being a
place where I posted my personal thoughts and findings -- doing so shrouded in anonymity
because I was partially ashamed to admit that I was “blogging” (the word just
sounds awful, right?) -- to an audience of, well, me to a place that has evolved
to the point where it has as many
visitors as it does. Blows my mind when I think about it.

I would like
to thank all of my regular readers for dropping in to digest my analysis. I
hope that you draw as much entertainment out of the posts as I do from
researching and writing them. Below, I have posted some of my personal favorite
entries from the past calendar year so check them out if you missed any.

I will promise
to try to try to make this site a better experience in 2012. I suppose that is
also contingent on the Twins being a good team but I will try to make the most
of it and provide informative pieces nonetheless. One of my biggest
shortcomings is my inability to foster relationships with readers like fellow
TwinsCentric writers like Seth Stohs and Nick Nelson do. I would like to
improve in that area this year. Feel free to follow me on Twitter (@OverTheBaggy) if you have any
questions or comments that are 140 characters or less. To sweeten the deal, if
you follow me and tweet “I WANT A FREE SHIRT FROM DIAMONDCENTRIC” I’ll send one
person a free DiamondCentric
shirt.

Also, I
should probably update my site’s description that was provided by
Newsbobber.com considering Michael Cuddyer is no longer with the Twins. If
anyone wants to attempt to provide me with some flattery, I’ll send a shirt if I
use it.

That’s it for
my ramblings. More analysis and video scouting to come. Happy 2012 all.

To
start the year in 2011, I made four
predictions for the upcoming season. The first was that Denard Span would have a rebound season. The second was that Danny Valencia would be mired in a
sophomore slump. The third was that Jim
Hoey would be this year’s version of Grant Balfour. The last was that Scott Baker would be the second best
pitcher in the starting rotation.

Looking
back, I clearly missed hard on the Hoey forecast. As I mentioned in the piece,
I was not basing that prediction off of any founded data aside from the fact
that the two were very comparable in the minors. Not having much
movement/control of his fastball coupled with the lack of a secondary pitch
proved that he was incapable of retiring major league hitters at this juncture.
Toronto, who claimed Hoey on waivers, will attempt to see if he can learn a
second pitch. While Hoey was a bust, the predictions of Span, Valencia and
Baker were almost all spot on. Somewhat. Depending how literal you are, I suppose.

My
first prediction was that Span would be on base more in 2011. This technically did
not come to fruition as Span posted an on-base percentage of .328 at the season’s
conclusion. However, if he never was concussed, he may have had one of his
better seasons of his career. He had a terrific start to the season, hitting
.295/.365/.378 heading into the game in Kansas City in which he would receive a
whiplash-induced concussion. Unfortunately, he struggled mightily after his attempted
return, going 9-for-62 (.145) with just 3 walks in 65 plate appearances and
dragging down his overall numbers.

Valencia
encountered the sophomore slump hardcore, which
I detailed in June of this year, sourced to the Twins third baseman getting
too pull-happy and a bit of regression in the amount of line drives that became
base hits (just 63% in 2011 versus 77% in 2010). This one was not too hard to
foresee.

Lastly,
Scott Baker emerged as perhaps the best starting pitcher (not second best as my
prediction stated) in the season’s first-half. After having bone chips removed
in 2010, Baker’s
regained his fastball’s dominance and was able to locate significantly better
in 2011. In the middle of a career-best season and holding a 3.01 ERA, Baker
was in consideration for the All Star game when his elbow started barking again
(a right forearm strain). After resting
and making a few more starts and a pair of relief appearances, Baker entered
the 2011 offseason the same way he entered the 2010 – waiting to show everyone
that he can withstand the rigors of an entire season.

In
February, I took the stance that it was a wise
decision for the Twins to not sign Francisco
Liriano to a long-term contract despite coming off a very successful
2010 campaign (14-10, 3.62 ERA, 201/58 K/BB ratio and a 2.95 xFIP). My take was
that Liriano’s mechanics and injury history left too much volatility to incite
the need for the organization to pounce and lock him up while having two years
of club control remaining. For whatever reason – poor conditioning, injury,
mentally unprepared or all of the above – Liriano regressed hard in 2011 and
leaving the Twins in position to say they made the right decision.

Throughout
the winter, Kyle Gibson was heralded
as the next man in line to enter the starting rotation. His midseason injury in
Rochester, necessitating Tommy John surgery, delayed his arrival until at least
2013. The unfortunate career-derailing injury aside, this past spring training
Gibson provided fans with glimpses of what makes him a strong pitcher. Based on
footage captured by 1500ESPN, I documented his strengths in Why
You Should Take Notice of Kyle Gibson. When he returns eventually, Gibson
will be a groundball-inducing pitcher with the potential to add strikeouts
along the way.

One
of the bigger talkers entering spring training was what would the Twins
starting rotation be? Following a strong performance in 2010 after being
shifted to the rotation in the last half of the season, lefty Brian Duensing was a highly touted
candidate to land one of those available spots. Judging from some of his
indicators (tough splits against right-handed batters, abnormally low BABIP and
abnormally high left-on-base rate) combined with his ability to overwhelm
left-handed hitters with a very good slider I found that Duensing
was best suited for a relief position. Duensing would go on to have one of the worst
statistical years among any starter, mostly based on right-handed opponents
obliterating him (which
I covered in August). Now the Twins are moving him back into the bullpen
where he should have been all along.

Denard Span had come off a fairly disappointing offensive
season in 2010. He had gone from hitting .305/.390/.422 in 2008 and 2009 to hitting
.264/.331/.348. Hitting coach Joe Vavra mentioned that Span had some mechanical
flaws that were causing him to not hit the ball square. In March, I took a look
at Span’s
progression in his mechanics over those three seasons and reached the
conclusion that, yes, Span was moving a lot as Vavra said, but had also changed
other things that may have affected his ability to drive the ball. I have not
done so yet but reviewing this piece reminds me that I should study his 2011
film and see what – if any – changes he made in the season’s first-half when he
owned a .295/.365/.378 batting line.

In
May, new arrival Tsuyoshi Nishioka
landed on the DL with a fractured leg courtesy of a Nick Swisher slide at
second. This play showed the wide cultural gap between how Japanese and Americans
(or rather Western Hemispherians) play the game. Nishioka
learned a painful lesson the hard way.

Justin Morneau struggled through April, hitting a utility-infielder-like
.224/.289/.303, and the Kansas City Royals broadcast team announced that their
home team had found a way to get the Twins first baseman out regularly: Pitch
him away. Morneau had been pulling his hip open, committing to yanking the ball
regardless of where it was pitched. A video
review showed that this was indeed occurring. Morneau never got his mojo
back and finished the year on the sidelines once again after another concussion
(this time in the field).

Matt Capps had an extremely rough 2011 season, a
lot of which had to do with a forearm injury. Perhaps to compensate for this
injury, early in the season, Capps demonstrated a peculiar
tendency of shifting on the rubber depending if the hitter was left-handed or
right-handed – something that he did not do prior to the 2011 season. In conferring
with Texas Leaguers’s pitch f/x database, it showed that Capps had been landing
his two-seamed fastball (his pitch of choice against lefties) over the plate
more than previous years.

After
the first month of the season, the Twins opening day shortstop, Alexi Casilla, was hitting a paltry
.167/.227/.200. Then he went on a tear in May hitting .317/.394/.439. Casilla
made some
mechanical adjustments that helped add pop to his bat and bring his numbers
back towards respectability. For whatever reason, his swing reverted back to
his pre-May days by the end of June and a hamstring injury cut his season
short.

Like
Casilla (and well, all of the Twins really), Delmon Young’s season started slow. As late as June 8,
he was hitting .219/.250/.271 with just a solitary home run in 164 plate appearances.
Young made
some changes to his swing – most notably elevating his hands – which helped
bring it all back into sync and restored his power. From June 11 onward, Young hit a much improved .287/.323/.442 with 10 home runs (and another
five home runs in the playoffs with Detroit).

Mijares:
“Joe never called for a slider.” Mauer: “I called for a fastball but not over
the plate.” Evidence.

Plenty
of frustrated Twins fans were upset at the decision to unload JJ Hardy in the winter of 2010. That
was amplified tenfold when Hardy went off for 30 home runs with the Baltimore
Orioles. Would that have happened if Hardy was in a Twins uniform in 2011? Hard
to say. The Orioles had Hardy make some changes
in his approach and swing which helped him pull pitches with power and turn
on pitches thrown inside.

About OtB

"Parker Hageman is the Michael Cuddyer of Twins bloggers -- not the flashiest guy out there, but a solid everyday player. Hageman produces spot-on analysis ... relying on in-depth stats and lots of charts. He takes a sober, performance-based view of players, letting others fall for a player's heart or his leadership skills in the clubhouse. Hageman is one of the four pillars holding up the Star Tribune's TwinsCentric blog."